Why waste tax dollars on higher education? A palace for eggheads who will not be able to get jobs.

Universities are a terrible waste of money.

Looks like the U got a deal on the old clunky microwave-sized computer CPUs. At least they have flat screens.

What wastes more money, our health care system, or higher ed? If you alone were in charge of spending "wisely" 80 million dollars (51 million of tax payer money), how would you spend it? Seems to me it was a great value, the U even convinced private individuals to donate over 20 million dollars as well. The project created a bunch of jobs, some of which probably lasted the life of the project, and now "eggheads" have a nicer place to study. Well "Why" it sounds like you are a pretty bright individual; what's your solution to "Universities" if they are such a waste of money? Who is a bigger "waste of money", an ignorant individual, or an educated individual? Who has a bigger carbon footprint? If you've got the solutions, lets hear them.

Remember that is an "egghead" that designed the computer on which you typed your comment, created the internet, and wrote the article. Before you started ridiculing higher education maybe you should give it a try and get out the dead-end job you probably have. Sure you can support your family holding a stop sign on the side of a road, but wouldn't you rather design it?

The money HAD to be spent. Or in a strong earthquake, the old portion of the library would have collapsed. If the library had then been open, likely several hundred would have been killed by the collapse. Not to mention destroying books and manuscripts worth far more money than what the cost of the retrofitting was.

Wasn't the Marriott library extensively remodeled less than a decade previous to this project?

Zeke,
The previous work was largely an expansion, the original building was only changed slightly. The last UofU alumni magazine had a great story about it.

Zeke The library project you're thinking of was a large expansion project that added a lot of new space and was finished in 1996. The old portion of the library though received very little attention at the time. Additionally the library far from becoming less used since the rise of online research has been far more used. My rough recollection is about 80% more visits in the last 10 years.